Skip to content

Skip to search - Accesskey = s

Your description here.

Tagged: Goose Island

from the RUDE PUNDIT:

Imagine that. The mostly Hispanic workers telling the rest of the country, “You mean some fuckin’ douchebag in a suit can squat his waxed ass in a comfy leather chair in a hearing room in DC and get a few hundred billion dollars for his other douchebags in suits, no strings attached, and no one’s gonna give a fuck if our bosses don’t even follow the fuckin’ law?” Auto workers, you need any more inspiration?

This is a shot across the bow to Congress, a way of saying, “Hello, you sons and daughters of bitches, this is the way corporate America has been treating your constituents for years. While you’re giving AIG enough to fund a small nation, how about tilting our way for a little while?” And if they don’t listen, let’s hope the next protests and the ones after that are bigger and more widespread. Shit needs to be shut down in order to wipe away all the bullshit lies of the free market (that’s not really free).

from WORKERS ACTION, LEAGUE FOR THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL:

This struggle is of exceptional importance because of its boldness in responding to the economic crisis and how it is affecting working people. This boldness could set an example for future confrontations and therefore deserves the attention and support of all workers.

The chain of events leading to this crisis started when Republic Window’s creditor, Bank of America, refused to extend credit to the company. According to Crain’s Chicago Business, Republic Window’s sales had fallen from $4 million to $2.9 million in the last month. However, Bank of America is flush with $25 billion from the bi-partisan bail out. At a solidarity demonstration outside the plant on Saturday, protesters expressed the situation concisely with stickers and signs reading, “You got bailed out, we got sold out.”

Workers are demanding $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management. Federal law mandates that workers get paid for unused vacation time and are either given 60 days notice of a mass layoff or pay for that time. The UE workers were only given three days notice of the closing. Republic Window and Door’s officials are claiming that Bank of America is not allowing them to make these required payments and benefit adjustments. Bank of America has responded by stating that they have no “…right to control whether a company complies with applicable laws or honors its commitment to its employees.” While this bickering between thieves continues, the workers’ intolerable situation and justified anger remains. “We aren’t animals,” Apolinar Cabrera, a 17-year Republic Windows employee, told Chicago Town Daily News. “We’re human beings and deserve to be treated like human beings.”

Workers have also expressed their suspicion that Republic Windows and Doors intends to move out of state and restructure their finances, leaving debt and misery in the wake. Some have reported that as early as two weeks ago the company started moving equipment out of the plant.

In this economic crisis, given what the capitalists are trying to get away with by making working people pay for the recession, the stakes are high. A 14-year machine operator at the company, Ron Bender, observed, “We’re doing this for the other working people in the country. What’s happened to us can happen to anyone — they could just close up and put you out and give you no severance pay.”

The AFL-CIO and Change to Win, as well as all other organizations concerned with the rights of working people should line up in solidarity with these UE members by educating and mobilizing their ranks in support. A victory could embolden workers across the country to resist the results of Wall Street’s greed and the bailout, which will be all the more needed as times grow harder. It could serve as a stepping stone for greater victories in the future where workers will not simply demand vacation and severance pay from a bankrupt company, but demand that such a company be nationalized under workers’ control. Furthermore, such a working class movement could go beyond addressing the problems at a given company and win victories for all workers in the areas of health care, ending the current wars, ensuring adequate funding for education, creating jobs for all, and so on.

The news has been brutal and frightening for workers over the last few months. A worldwide recession of unknown depth and duration is unfolding. In this country, the number of home foreclosures is expected to hit seven million by the end of the year. Last month alone 533,000 workers lost their jobs, contributing to the highest unemployment rate in 15 years. And while this decline accelerates, workers have been stung with a Democratic Party-led bi-partisan bailout of the financial institutions whose reckless greed is responsible for this mess. The New York Times estimates that this rescue package for the wealthy will cost seven trillion American taxpayer dollars (see “The Bail Out Intensifies” on this site). While this arrangement helps to ease the capitalists’ anxiety, they place a dark cloud over working people’s future. Rather than promoting economic growth, the bailout measures are more likely to result in hoarding on the part of the bailout’s beneficiaries as well as produce inflation. Meanwhile, unemployment will continue to climb, and there will be further slicing of our already cut-to-the-bone social safety net by the capitalists’ politicians.

The inevitable consequence of such developments is that people are left with no choice but to fight against the conditions they are forced to endure. They begin to see that there are opposed interests at play between those who control the economy and political system, and those who are expected to do all the sacrificing. Workers will be compelled to act and, as a result, begin to become aware of themselves as a class where, if they are to defend themselves and their rights, must unite against those who are accustomed to ruling them without question. Under such circumstances, the workers’ demands are always modest and partial to begin with, but, to the degree that their actions rely on their independent strength as a class, they plot a course towards growing confrontation with the capitalist status quo and thereby raise the question of who shall control society, working people or the rich minority. Nationwide, such a course initially starts with an accumulation of small skirmishes, unavoidably leading to a social explosion that can place the working class’ interests on the historical stage in a way that would have been seen as impossible just a short time ago. The worker’s occupation of Republic Windows and Doors could prove to be a skirmish that sets the example for a working class upsurge that will bring more change and hope into our lives than any capitalist politician ever could.

There is no telling how long this occupation and the struggle behind it will continue. Workers, Republic Windows and Doors, and Bank of America are supposed to meet at 4:00pm on Monday. Nevertheless, these workers’ actions have already made a mark in labor history. Food has been coming for them from all over in solidarity. You can donate by going to www.ueunion.org and clicking on “anger in Chicago,” or by writing a check payable to the “UE Local 110 Solidarity Fund” and sending it to UE Local 1110 Solidarity Fund, 37 S. Ashland, Chicago, IL 60607. Messages of support can be sent to organizer Leah Fried <mailto:leahfried@gmail.com>. At the Jobs with Justice Web site, you can send a message of protest to Bank of America. http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/12/101949.html. You can also call UE at 312-829-8300.

Even President-elect, Barak Obama, because of massive public support for the UE workers, has felt compelled to offer support to the workers at Republic Windows and Doors in the form of lip service, without promising any specific action.

Organized labor should call on the government to take over Republic Windows and Doors and let the workers run the plant themselves. This demand could be part of a government emergency public works project that would make all public buildings, beginning with public housing, more energy efficient by installing new windows and doors. Such a program could then be the first step in establishing a broad-based coalition that would advocate a public works program that would put people back to work while maintaining their standard of living. This program could instill confidence among working people and their allies and inspire them to proceed onwards to fundamentally change the economic system so that it would serve the needs of people, not the pursuit of profits for the rich.

from COUNTERPUNCH:

To help out, please log on to www.ueunion.org for details on how to provide financial and moral support to the strikers today. Next, I imagine if victory is not achieved quickly, the union may call on supporters to take peaceful yet assertive actions at Bank of America branches across the country. Local groups and coalitions might want to start researching and planning actions should the UE strikers call on us to escalate pressure. Finally, it looks like the workers are now contesting the very closing of the plant and maybe they’ll even seek to run the plant themselves without bosses, both moves which will require a long-term and steady commitment of solidarity from supporters.

Daniel Gross is an organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World and the author with Staughton Lynd of the recently released, “Labor Law for the Rank and Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law” (PM Press 2008). He can be reached at dgross (at) iww.org.

A contingent of 15 Chicago aldermen said today they will introduce an ordinance to require the city to stop doing any business with the Bank of America.

Bank of America cut off its line of credit to Republic Windows and Doors, causing the Chicago company to halt operations on Friday, December 5 and terminate its 250 workers with only three days notice, and without receiving their earned vacation pay, as well as compensation they are entitled to under the WARN Act. The workers’ situation attracted world-wide attention begining Friday evening, when they began occupying the plant, refusing to leave until Bank of America, the company and other creditors honor their obligations to employees.

“It is outrageous for Bank of America to cut off credit, a company’s lifeblood, after receiving $15 billion of taxpayers’ money as part of the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP),” said Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward). Bank of America also has raised $9 billion in taxpayer guaranteed loans and is expected to receive another $10 billion in TARP funds in the next two weeks.

“It’s not only unfair to the workers, but also Bank of America is thumbing its nose at Congress by taking federal recovery funds while refusing to extend credit to a small manufacturing company with a long history of profitability,” said Thomas Balanoff, president of SEIU Illinois Council. “Bank of America’s withdrawal of credit also contradicts and undercuts President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to stimulate the depressed economy by investing in weatherization of existing homes and buildings and in other infrastructure and energy-saving construction,” Balanoff added.

“The workers want Bank of America to keep the plant open and the workers employed,” said Carl Rosen, president of UE, the union that represents the Republic workers. “There is always a demand for windows and doors. But with Barack Obama’s stimulus proposal, there will be even greater demand for the products made by Republic’s workers. It doesn’t make sense to close this plant when the need is so obvious,” he added.

The ordinance requires that any City of Chicago funds deposited at Bank of America, or any of its subsidiaries, be removed and placed with another suitable bank. It also states that Bank of America shall not be selected to underwrite, sell, market or re-market any City of Chicago bonds without the explicit approval of City Council.

The ordinance also contains a provision requiring that any proposed change in zoning of a property owned by Bank of America, or any of its subsidiaries, be brought individually before the full City Council for evaluation and approval.

“Under the law, the City Council has the authority and responsibility to take into account the interests of Chicago and its residents when deciding which banks to do business with,” said Alderman Ricardo Munoz (22nd Ward). “Bank of America profits handsomely from the business it gets from the City and other governments. We have a right to demand that workers are treated fairly.”

UE Local 1110 members in Chicago, employees at Republic Windows and Doors have occupied their workplace since Friday night in a courageous bid to win what they are owed and to save their jobs.

Only a couple days earlier, they had learned the plant would be closing Friday as Bank of America, flush with U.S. government bailout cash, had refused to extend Republic’s line of credit. They found out the bank had also refused to allow Republic to pay them what they were owed.

They realized their only real chance at winning a measure of fairness would be to guard, and guarantee the safety, of the only asset at their disposal — their workplace.

Since then, worldwide support has poured in as the news of a plant sitdown — rarely seen in the U.S. since the 1930s — spread like wildfire. By early Monday morning, a Google news search found nearly 1,500 story references. One Facebook group grew from 800 to 2,400 members between noon and midnight Sunday.

Working people, caught in the turmoil of the current economic crisis have found new hope in the actions of these UE members. And, that’s not gone unnoticed.

Politicians, including president-elect Barack Obama, members of Congress, members of the Illinois legislature, Chicago city officials and civil rights leaders including the Rev. Jesse Jackson have all voiced their support for this fight. We hope you will, too.

From stopping by the plant (if you’re in or near Chicago) to sending a message of solidarity to making a much-needed donation to telling Bank of America to be honorable in its actions … these are just some of the ways you can help … and they are all listed at right.